1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology estimating and tracking a distance and a position of a specific object. More particularly, the present invention relates to a technology that estimates a distance between a camera and a specific object by using a generally used simple apparatus, such as the camera instead of estimating or tracking a distance or a position of a specific object by using expensive equipment or complicatedly calculating information collected by the expensive equipment. Further, the present invention relates to a technology that calculates the position of the specific object on the basis of the estimated distance.
2. Description of the Related Art
A robot application technology is a technological field that is actively researched in a home networking system and an automation system. The robot application technology develops a human-friendly robot technology by interaction between a robot and the human. Accordingly, the interaction between the robot and the human is an important technological factor. Therefore, the robot application technology in which the interaction between the human and the robot has an important part requires a technology where the robot can track a position (coordinate or direction and distance) of a user. As a result, a technology of tracking a position of a specific object such as a user in a specific apparatus such as the robot is being actively researched.
The known object position tracking technology tracks the position of the specific object on the basis of position data of the specific apparatus such as the robot and position vector information from the specific apparatus to the specific object. Herein, since position information measurement instruments such as a navigation and a GPS sensor are incorporated in a control of the specific apparatus such as the robot, the position data of the specific apparatus can be acquired from the controller of the specific apparatus. Accordingly, it is a key point of the object position tracking technology to acquire the position vector information from the specific apparatus to the specific object.
It is important to acquire distance data from the specific apparatus to the specific object in the known technology for acquiring the position vector information from the specific apparatus to the specific object. In the known technology, devices such as a stereo camera, an ultrasonic sensor, a laser sensor, etc., have been used in acquiring the distance data. However, since the devices are expensive, a problem that the user feels a burden of the price cannot be solved at the time of adopting the robot using the devices in a low-cost apparatus such as home robot.
On the contrary, a function to detect a face on the basis of a camera image has been generally universalized to be mounted on a mobile communication apparatus, a toy, etc., in recent years. Further, even in the robot application technology, since the detection function corresponds to a function basically installed and used for user recognition, motion detection, obstacle avoidance, etc., a necessity of the method capable of using the camera image for tracking the position of the object is increasing.